Ravings of an infertile grump

I wish I knew so many things; primarily how hard it would be to get pregnant and carry a baby. How early in life it is possible to have your fertility rapidly decline. How painful it would be to want something more than anything else in all the world and have no control over getting it. That struggling to conceive would impact every single thing I you do every moment of every day. That my life would be lived in 2 week sections of time for well over a year. That an obsession I once found rather exciting now terrifies me. That I would develop a mild form of ptsd when it comes to ultrasounds.

 

Maybe these aren't all things that I WISH I knew, but they are sure as hell things I have learned (and oh so many more). Sadly, it's true that I have a panic attack every single time I have to have the vag cam done. Last year when we discovered during our 1st ultrasound that we had lost our wee one something in me changed. Something that I had looked so forward to became one of the most tragic events in my life. And now ever time I have to go in for the vag cam (which is A LOT when you are doing monitored cycles) my heart races, I can hardly breathe, I am nauseated and on the verge of tears. I used to be CRAZY excited to POAS (I know weird) but now on the mornings that I take hpt's I really do it more to prove to myself there is no cause for excitement or wondering. Up to this point I have always been an early "I HAVE to know!" tester. I'm not anymore...if I didn't HAVE to because of my need for prometrium I don't think I would EVER take another hpt. I think after 2 losses I am almost as scared for it to be BFP as BFN. There is no doubt that TTC has changed me, an not at all for the better. Some of you (if anyone is reading) may not have even known me before ttc, some of you may wonder why I have become the angry bitter person that I am (though certainly no one that has ever had trouble conceiving). Many of you may have infants, be pregnant or still be building your families. I pray that you have never known this pain, this overwhelming emptiness, the feeling a defeat and despair every single cycle when the bloody bitch rears her head.

 

I have developed a sick sense of who I feel "deserves" a child and who doesn't. I have people from both sides of that list in my life daily. Chances are that if you are reading this you are on my list of people that I deem worthy of your children (but know this certainly isn't a guarantee lol). I try so hard when I see people that are pregnant or have babies that I don't know to not hate them. Usually just seeing a pregnant belly at the store is enough to ruin my day. As much as I wouldn't wish this on anyone I can hardly stand that other people are pregnant and I'm not. How sick is that? I am so tired of people saying that once I have kids I will regret it and wonder why I tried so hard. Or even better that if I can't have kids that it means that it isn't God's will. Really? Because God looked at me and decided I would be such a horrible mother that he rendered me infertile and/or took my babies when they were only weeks inside me. Or that God always decides when the perfect time is? Really? Is that why a meth junkie can have 3 perfectly healthy beautiful babies and I have none because it was the perfect time for her to get knocked up and let yet another addicted little baby be born to a mother than didn't want it. Oh no wait...I'm supposed to relax right; take a vacation?! Yes because somehow vacation will miraculously rejuvenate my ovaries, get rid of my autoimmune disease and change the size and shape of The Captain's swimmers. Oh don't waste all that money that way, you can buy a new car...or pay down your house. WTF?!?! If you can give me a healthy pregnancy and baby you can HAVE my Camry, I'll drive it to your house and walk home. In fact you can HAVE my house...or at least live in the basement. Really with all the things that I wish that I knew, I wish OTHER people knew more. I wish other people understood that we (the hubs and I) both have medical problems that need to be that need to be treated if we can ever hope to have a baby. I wish they knew that vacation was not the answer; it would be so much cheaper if we could spend a week on the beach and suddenly be knocked up! Speaking of money yes we have (and will continue) to spend more for IF than most other things in our lives (so far more than we spent on The Captain's CAR) and it isn't spending the money that bothers us. Not at all! I will give every material thing that I have for a baby, the thing that SUCKS about spending this money is that we may still not have a baby. We may spend 20G on an IVF cycle and still have nothing to show for it but a really expensive BFN. But for the chance at a baby, the gamble, the 1 shot we may have...we will turn our lives inside out...just for the CHANCE...so all the nay sayers can simply EFF OFF and butt out of our business.

Got 14 days?

A few weeks ago on 1 of the many "natural fertility" sites I follow I saw a little snippet for a free 14 day fertility challenge. Of course they don't really give you a whole lot of information but essentially is gets you on the path of leading a fertility friendly lifestyle. Knowing the RE was going to tell us we really should be doing IVF/ICSI like uh NOW. I figure it is time to do the 1 last thing that I have in my arsenal of things to try...eating a better diet and taking off excess weight. These 2 things will help our natural chances but also, if we do get to where we are doing IVF because of the cost (both $ and emotional) we MUST make it count, we MUST do everything we can to increase our chances of success. And by we mostly it means me because I am where a baby will live so I need to make a nice cozy inviting house so one will decide to stay a while. So this challenge starts February 1 and will likely coincide pretty closely with the start of my cycle. Why not right?! Not like it can HURT. At worst some free useless information, at best free helpful information.

Update from the RE

  January 4th was the day that we finally had our 1st consultation with the RE. To give a little bit of history in May I was diagnose with progesterone deficiency/luteal phase defect; in September the Captain was diagnosed with severely depressed sperm parameters. Shortly after the sucktastic SA we started the hubs on clomid in the hopes that it beef up his boys. January was when he was due for his recheck. So back to the RE. We we pleasantly surprised that we had a magnificent increase in sperm parameters...we are nowhere near normal but we'll take any improvement.

  Unfortunately we have also been diagnosed with DOR (diminished ovarian reserve) along with our MFI (male factor infertility) and that coupled with my autoimmune disorder is certainly not making things easy. I will very likely soon be starting a delightful regime of prednisone to help my body not ward off any embryo that we DO manage to make. The breakdown of our chances for conception are rather abysmal:Naturally 1-3%, IUI 5-10%, IVF 35-50%...yeah even our chances with IVF are greatly reduced. Anyone have A LOT of money they aren't using that they want to send our way? I told dh that we should tell our families that if they want visitation that have to put down a cash deposit; it seems fair to me.

  So basically the plan this month is the same as last, hopefully with better results. But I will call the Dr's office once the wicked bitch shows up and get "things" scheduled and in motion.

Nothing like sex ed

  You have 1 unprotected sexual encounter and you get knocked up right?! Simple. That's what they told us in health class. So you you decide you want to have a baby and you follow these steps: 1. Throw away your birth control 2. Hump like bunnies 3. 2 weeks later you pee on a stick and you see that glorious 2nd pink line 4. 9ish months later you say "honey it's time" 5. Off you go to the hospital to painlessly have your baby.
 
  But then you slowly discover that the 2nd line doesn't always show up. In fact each cycle there is only a 25% chance that a "young" (we'll get to that later),  healthy couple has about a 25% chance of conceiving each cycle. And that's with perfectly timed intercourse. WTF?! An egg and a sperm have 1 job in life and only manage to do it about 25%...or less...of the time. If I only showed up to work 25% of the time I would get fired! Besides that I have a much better work ethic than to only work a quarter of the time. Granted I spend plenty of time with other "distractions" BUT I digress. In reality the steps go a little more like this: 1. Toss your birth control 2. Hump like bunnies 3. Pee on a stick and see 1 sad lonesome line 4. Repeat step 3 daily  5. Get your #@$*!% period 6. Repeat step 3 claiming implantation bleeding. Now that is just the 1st cycle; after than you get a little more crazy. You claim you are letting nature take it's course all the while secretly peeing on OPK's to detect when your body decides to pop that glorious egg. Then you repeat all these steps...again and again and again.

  The reality of TTC is so much different that I ever thought that it would be, and the longer your journey the harder it gets. You learn that your fertility starts to decline after the age of 20. You have the heartbreaking realization that a positive pregnancy test doesn't mean you get a baby; that not bleeding doesn't mean your pregnancy is healthy. Your heart breaks with every baby bump you see, every stroller that passes you on the street. The months tick by and you wonder what you ever did wrong that EVERYONE else is pregnant but YOU'RE not.  First your sad, then you're angry, then you try and take control.